Has anyone else forgotten their childhood?

[HitchHiker]

I have almost no memories prior to the age of 15.

I don't remember what the insides of my homes looked like, my bedrooms, my pets. I know of things that my family have talked about and I've got pictures in my head of what they probably looked like but I can't recall anything, no christmases or fond memories or trips we took. It's like I've blocked my childhood out.

I have a few foggy memories of the fighting between my parents, most of it violent.

The only memory I have that I can recall clearly is my father saying he was leaving to go and be with my cousin who had died a few weeks before. I remember crying and begging him not to leave me. He left me alone in the house and took a paracetamol overdose in his car. (He survived it). I think I was about 7.

I wish I could remember some of the good stuff.

I'm 36 now.

Does anyone else have this?

 

[not_a_robot]

Consider yourself lucky. If your mind forgot,it has a reason.
Of course now that you're digging around, something will turn up that you wish had stayed forgotten.

 

[inconsequential]

I genuinely wish I could forget even 5% of it.

 

[HitchHiker]

Consider yourself lucky. If your mind forgot,it has a reason.
Of course now that you're digging around, something will turn up that you wish had stayed forgotten.

Yeah you're probably right. There must have been some good stuff though.

 

[not_a_robot]

Yeah you're probably right. There must have been some good stuff though.

Do you smoke pot? heavy use will fuck short term memory but light use can probably bring some longterm stuff back.

 

[Onomotopoeia]

I dont remember any of my childhood but I do not form memories at all so I really do not remember anything except a few facts regardless of when they occur. I spent a lot of time thinking i just did not remember by childhood it was not until i was in my 30's I realized I simply did not make memories the same way everyone else does.

So yes I have this also but likely not in the same manner. Sucks all the same

 

[dandan]

fuck the past, why would i wanna remember it, except the good stuff,what good stuff?

 

[HitchHiker]

Do you smoke pot? heavy use will fuck short term memory but light use can probably bring some longterm stuff back.

Yeah I do, only lightly too. Like you say, maybe it's best not to remember anyway.

Is it sometimes normal for people not to remember though? Like some people are just more forgetful than others and the memories don't stick? Or does it always mean something bad do you think?

I'm not going to dig. My relationship with family is disjointed and I'd never know who or what to believe anyway.

 

[not_a_robot]

nah, I was being morbid because my memories are bad. it may be no big deal.

 

[daikon]

I've been forgetting more and more of mine, particularly as I distance myself from my family. It seems pretty common — I see lot of people talking about forgetting their childhood. Depression and anxiety can also fuck with your memory, and if you lived through traumatic experiences you may have blocked some stuff out (but I've also heard repressing memories isn't actually a thing)

 

[Morphinekiss]

I have vivid memories of certain events, the rest I've blocked. My therapist and I were beginning to explore why, but then that good old thing known as insurance fucked me over.

 

[deltahead]

my brain has rotted to such a point now that i can't remember much. i do have some recollections of various embarassing, strange, and otherwise disturbing moments. lots of my parents fighting and mom yelling. embarassing moments at school during that period where i still pretended to be a real person. my drunk grandfather pretending to cut into my belly with a knife as a joke. various inept and extremely insubstantial sexual encounters with a male cousin. failing grades. a lot of existential fatigue and pure dread at the thought of having to continue living. that's what the first 10-ish years of my life were, then i left school and the last years of my childhood were spent sitting here, having dubious interactions with adults online. i don't think any of this has to do with "repressed" (what am i, some kind of human with a real life story where significant traumatic events happened?) memories. it's more like nothing actually happened in my childhood (and entire life). from birth i seemed to lack the faculties to actually "color in" events, define them, make them something real and personal. it just seemed like a blueprint, a fake shadow of a life. it's not like i have memories worth keeping around, anyway. let's just throw it all away.

 

[keara]

I don't remember anything of my childhood except a couple of brief and random moments. I have a terrible memory even for more recent events.

 

[HGL91]

I have vivid memories of certain events, the rest I've blocked. My therapist and I were beginning to explore why, but then that good old thing known as insurance fucked me over.

Insurance is good at pretending they give a fuck. Sorry that happened. I once had a therapist that said she'd see me for a cheaper price if I came every 2 weeks instead of every week. Could you do that?

 

[Morphinekiss]

Insurance is good at pretending they give a fuck. Sorry that happened. I once had a therapist that said she'd see me for a cheaper price if I came every 2 weeks instead of every week. Could you do that?

He did offer me a discount rate, but as I'm unemployed and have other medical issues to tend to $100 every session is hard to manage. I just can't believe that my insurance went from having a list of mental health providers in my town, to the closest one being an hour and a half away. Same with a gynecologist. Fuck medical care. Now I'm just ranting, ha.

 

[HGL91]

He did offer me a discount rate, but as I'm unemployed and have other medical issues to tend to $100 every session is hard to manage. I just can't believe that my insurance went from having a list of mental health providers in my town, to the closest one being an hour and a half away. Same with a gynecologist. Fuck medical care. Now I'm just ranting, ha.

Hey, don't feel bad about ranting! This is a great place to do it. And yes. Sounds like insurance and just businesses in general. They always love switching things up to make it difficult for their customers and think explaining in a sweet voice makes it all better. Fuck medical care, indeed!

I had thee best insurance until I was 26 because in California you can be on your parent's insurance until then and my mother was a nurse at a very prestigious hospital. Now, I'm shocked by how much having good health insurance really matters because now I live in a new state and cannot afford health insurance, nor do I qualify for free medical insurance even though I did in California, so I'm basically screwed. Would have to pay for them out of pocket at a clinic if I planned to live much longer.

And dang. $100 is a lot! Mine offered $40 every other week.

 

[Divine Trinity]

I've been forgetting more and more of mine, particularly as I distance myself from my family. It seems pretty common — I see lot of people talking about forgetting their childhood. Depression and anxiety can also fuck with your memory, and if you lived through traumatic experiences you may have blocked some stuff out (but I've also heard repressing memories isn't actually a thing)

Just from an, at best, elementary understanding of associative memory and human physiology, anything we don't habitually use either deteriorates, decreases production, or "turns off".

The reason most people don't remember infancy or early childhood is because those experiences are loose "files" of data with poor or no context for use. The memory is still ingrained in the neural network, but because we aren't thinking about x event at y time when we're 4 yrs old it fades into the background. As we mature the associative network is more developed, thus we're able to connect more experiences to our environment and recall them for future context.

Another interesting theory (hypothesis) would be language use, Noam Chomsky's work in linguistics essentially claims that the primary use of human language is to act as an interface for the body during interactions with its environment, a sort of built-in UI mechanic. Communication with other people is a secondary function, which explains why us "social" animals are so inept at communicating with one another. Anyways, I was thinking memory could possibly be correlated with language skill, on paper infants would have the worst associative memory while fluid multi-lingual people would have the highest rates. I however, am unaware of how to measure this, guess that's PhD project.

Trauma in the short term would be recalled very frequently and thus be a long lasting memory, but because the victim would attempt to supress the memory it's recollection would decline sharply overtime. When it doesn't fade into the "background neural network" it's called PTSD and the psychiatrist bombards your head with drugs and electric shocks.

 

[Ko9]

I wish. I still wake up screaming almost every night.

 

[Final Escape]

I do remember certain years more but not my earliest years. The impactful ones really start at like 5 onward. That's when the dysfunction really began to effect me. By 6 I remember starting to bite my nails because I felt the stress in the environment.

 

[eewlife]

I don't remember them for any reasons i dont know why i only have one picture also when i was 6 years old i dont know why either

 

[mattwitt]

My childhood is long gone and forgotten now. It's like I never even had one.

 

[Darkhaven]

Well, i'm in my early 20's and i still remember a lot.
However i seem to not remember as much as i did some years ago.
From my experience, and as not_a_robot said, the more you try to remember things the bigger the chance you have of bringing something you probably wished stayed in the deepest corners of your mind.

 

[a_strange_day]

wish I could forget it all, instead I think about it a lot and it makes me hate myself even more, it was good years then, just before I became a piece of shit and destroyed everything/everyone unlucky enough to be around me

 

[HGL91]

I used to complain about my childhood, but compared to life now, I'd totally choose my childhood over my adulthood. All of the responsibilities, physical pain and mental pain endured just to keep a roof over ones head and pay bills is exhausting.

 

[Soulless_Angel]

childhood, the one that remains a mystery, what is real what is our mind playing games with us, Memories a thing that made us yet tortures us. Mine have recently come back and fuck me I wish they would go away again.....screw this!!!

 

[_milo]

I feel the same way. It's like I can only remember a set time back from the current day. My limit seems to be about ten years prior. It seems like the older I grow the more I forget about my life.

 

[GreyMagic]

I have almost no memories prior to the age of 15.

I don't remember what the insides of my homes looked like, my bedrooms, my pets. I know of things that my family have talked about and I've got pictures in my head of what they probably looked like but I can't recall anything, no christmases or fond memories or trips we took. It's like I've blocked my childhood out.

I have a few foggy memories of the fighting between my parents, most of it violent.

The only memory I have that I can recall clearly is my father saying he was leaving to go and be with my cousin who had died a few weeks before. I remember crying and begging him not to leave me. He left me alone in the house and took a paracetamol overdose in his car. (He survived it). I think I was about 7.

I wish I could remember some of the good stuff.

I'm 36 now.

Does anyone else have this?

I never thought I would find anybody who has had a similar experience to me.

• 0 to 11 years old - I can't remember any of it. The stuff i do know is because somebody else has told me.
• 11 to 18 years old - remember stuff through flashbacks and nightmares only.
• 19 + - in general excellent memory.

 

[Grey-zone]

I'm in my late 20s, and most of my childhood past seems relatively blurry--granted, I was "homeschooled" from 11, so those following years were fairly constant and dull, and so forgettable, but of my early childhood and elementary school there isn't a strong sense of identity or memory anymore; it's like I'm looking back on a different, almost unrelated person via random and opaque episodes. I guess I am a different person: years of isolation and depression culminate in a frayed sense of self.

 

[TheGoodGuy]

The title alone felt like a stab in my heart I visited my childhood town yesterday and walked around my childhood school a time where I had the best years of my life and visited where my childhood home used to be before it got demolished last year.

Anyways my childhood has been foggy for many years even since I was 15-16 but I could still remember many memories vividly and the feelings I experienced too (nostalgia) Now I can only vaguely remember things from the past even my teenage years when I try and recall memories from I was 16 I can´t feel the emotions that usually follows nostalgia because I have been apathetic for the last 5 years. I still remember happy memories from these times also from my childhood but they are so vague they almost don´t feel real anymore my current life feels like a movie where someone has pressed next chapter and I am suddenly 25 years old and wondering how the fuck did I get here? I was 16 years old just a moment ago yet I am 25.

 

[Going Home]

Yes and it's the pleasant memories from childhood that have kept me going, few as they are.

No idiots getting off and harassing people with cellphones cameras.